


Stress Molting.

by toastyboi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anxiety, Cause they both have so much shit pent up, Davesprite feels like fuck and Dave tries to empathize, Homestuck - Freeform, Legit ends up in a mess of clashing feels and unfiltered language, M/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, kind of sad, my poor bbys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 09:25:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6000793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastyboi/pseuds/toastyboi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So what's been eating at you, dude?"<br/>"Fuck if I know." <br/>You can already tell by the tone of your voice and his slightly expectant expression that you're going to have to elaborate more as to why you've been acting like the equivalent of a fresh pile of shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stress Molting.

You can't count how many times you've been thrown head first into a never-ending cesspool of self-loathing. 

Ever since you and the others had been essentially barfed up by the game, you've felt oddly out of place. It wasn't much of a surprise, considering you hadn't even changed physical form a bit since you had first been mashed together. You still had a wild amount of untamed orange feathers, and scaly claw-hands that you obviously didn't appreciate. Even if they were all used to it by now, you couldn't help the sinking feeling that you stuck out like a sore thumb, and everyone was watching you. This thought is what essentially confined you to the small as all hell living space you deemed your nesting area. Really, it was just the old apartment and room you had before getting involved with the game, and even though Dirk and Dave were obviously sharing it with you, you had loneliness hanging over your head like a black funeral veil. 

You didn't mention it, though. 

In fact, you were so keen on keeping it a secret that you had entirely forgotten to talk to anybody in the process of being there. You would go into what you could only describe as a trance-like state, forgetting to do things that your ectoplasmic sprite body needed, such as getting food and water, and sleep. You hoped that people were concerned by your lack of communication, but when you went to check, nobody so much as gave you a "hey!". Stuff like that made it exceedingly difficult to believe that you actually mattered to the people around you. 

You guessed that Dave had picked up on your upset mood somehow, because on this particular day when you were more than happy to sit in your nesting pile and wallow in self pity, he had come in to check on you. Your eyes were slightly puffed from the tears you didn't want to admit you had been crying, and feathers had begun to accumulate around and in the nest from all of the stress molting you had been going through. It startled you to see the door open, and you didn't have time to slap your shades on before Dave had begun talking. 

"I'm obviously not the best when it comes to picking up on other peoples moods, but by the three day old plate of pancakes laying on the desk, and the amount of plummage that I'm stepping on, I can only guess that you're not feeling like Shirley Temple in those old black and white films. There's some negative animal crackers in your emotional soup." He said all this while stepping over piles of things you had left out, and eventually he made his way over to seat himself down next to you, without much of a warning. You only let out a grunt and shifted a little bit to give him some room. 

"So what's been eating at you, dude?"

"Fuck if I know." You half-groan, rubbing your face a little bit with your hands. You can already tell by the tone of your voice and his slightly expectant expression that you're going to have to elaborate more as to why you've been acting like the equivalent of a fresh pile of shit. You really don't want to, though, because the thought of getting judgement (especially by someone who is quite literally yourself) is something you do not want to pull yourself through. It has to happen sometime though, and you guess letting it all out would be good. 

"Okay, give me some room here to babble on about it, because there's so much fuckery built up in this small birdy bod of mine." A nod was all he gave, and you just went for it. 

"So to keep myself from taking a stick and beating around the metaphorical bush, I'm just gonna go right up and say that I fucking hate myself. It's been this way ever since I fully realized that hey, I'm never going to amount to anything that Dave's been doing right now. And it's not just stupid jealously, it's just me thinking about how many people are totally there for you and have no problem being your pal, but they take one look at me and assume that I'm some cheap knockoff version of you. I didn't think so at first, I was pretty keen on the whole "I'm a new Dave" shebang, but after everybody just dropped the fucking "I like you" act and stopped talking to me, It's really been sinking in. I'm a grossly made abomination, nothing more than a copy. I shouldn't even exist right now, you know, I should be dead with the sprite coding. But nah, here I am, doing nothing for myself and sitting in my own problems hoping that it'll get better."

You took a moment to catch your breath, not even realizing that Dave had moved closer at some point during your rant, his hand gripping your own most likely as a comforting thing. After wiping the moisture from your eyes, you just kept going. 

"After that it just went the fuck downhill. I don't want to get up sometimes, and I don't want to talk to people. I'm flooded with memories from other timelines and I'm constantly fidgeting and worried, and sometimes it gets so bad that I can't breathe. Fuck me, honestly, I don't even know what the hell is wrong, but I don't wanna bring it up with anybody. I'm-" a choked noise let out before you composed yourself, "-I'm conceited enough to thing that if I try to people will show genuine concern. And I don't want to provoke more shit about me, so I keep quiet. I stay in here because on most days I can't muster the energy to get up. Damn, fuck, I don't want to keep going on about it, I'm just fucking myself over even more."

You didn't even notice that you had full on began to cry, blobs of yellow tears rolling down your cheeks and staining the blankets beneath you. Dave was stunned into silence, though his arm had moved from your hand to around you completely. It was comforting, and you subconsciously leaned against him for security. You couldn't breathe right, and your head was in a daze. At this point Dave was just trying to get you to calm down, and after a minute or so of generically rubbing your back with the whole "there there" thing, you managed to stutter out a sentence. 

"Sorry. Didn't realize I was dumping so much out." You moved to pull away from him, but his arm tightened its grip and kept you there. Before you could protest, he was already talking. 

"I can't say much about all of that, and hell I don't even know if you want me to, but you should really start relaying this all to me more. I can one-hundred percent confirm that you are /way/ more fucking important than an "off brand" Dave. Like, if we didn't like you, we would have kicked your ass out on the street. But you're right here, and me and Dirk are constantly like fuck man is DS alright, and we're praying to whatever the fuck is out there that you didn't bite the dust. We figured your needed your space but after awhile it got pretty worrying. Glad I came in here though, because another thing I need to say is that from now on I'm checking up on you. Daily. Three times a day, 24/7, either for a feels jam or just to ask if you want some takeout. Because we /really/ don't want you dead, gone, whatever. We need you right here, rockin' your dudely thing."

It wasn't a speech that you would present to the Queen of England, but it meant more to you than all of the things said to you, ever. You collapse against him, now, arms draped oddly around him in what you could only describe as a hug. He's hugging you back, tight, and you feel him tug up a blanket to make your more comfortable. Your face is pressed oddly up against his chest, and you let out a sigh, glad you didn't have your shades on. This would have been uncomfortable. 

"Don't talk to anyone else about this."

"You got it."

His hands moved to lightly scratch at the base of your wings, and after a few minutes of letting your stomach settle, sleep began to tug at your eyes as a headache grew from all the crying. You couldn't help yourself, and after awhile, you ended up falling asleep against him. You don't know what happened after that, but you do remember the feeling of a kiss being pressed against your head, and arms wrapping tighter around you.


End file.
